


Strength of Strings

by thecountessolivia



Category: Charlie Countryman (2013)
Genre: Angst, Crappy Afterlife, F/M, Rated M for some saucy recollections, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 10:11:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11780994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecountessolivia/pseuds/thecountessolivia
Summary: Nigel is a ghost in Bucharest. It's fucking awful.





	Strength of Strings

**Author's Note:**

> Little drabble written after watching "Charlie Countryman" for the first time. Title from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYEImDgztM)

It could have been worse: a cap to the skull — then a whole eternity of nothing. That had been the expectation and the plan, but Nigel once heard something about mice and men.

That being said, the ghost-life he got instead isn't exactly fucking charmed.

It started off like this: once his brain decided that being stuffed with hot lead wasn't a survivable event and terminated life support, Nigel became a ball of feeling. A blind, blustering storm cloud of rage, to be precise. Rage bore witness to Nigel the Corpse being dragged away by the pigs; rage saw Charlie the Very Living Cocksucker lifted from the water and into Gabi's arms. In those first few moments, Nigel remembered thinking: the rest of me is dead but my fucking heart survived.

Shortly after that, it occurred to him: this must be hell. What else could be worse than having the faceless forces of the afterlife hold him in place while that little American shit took her away to fuck knows where?

Once he realises that he's stuck in Bucharest for good, it takes some time for Nigel to feel like Nigel again. Things get easier, but being a ghost proves to be dull-as-fuck. Lonely, too. He seeks out distractions. He sneaks into cars with drunk tourists and laughs his ass off when they crash and get themselves all mangled. He tags along with petty hustlers on their ill-advised jobs and watches with glee when it all turns to blood. When Darko finally gets done in and is hauled in front of a judge, Nigel sits in court and stares at blown-up photos of his blown-up head. It passes the time.

She doesn't come to the trial. He snoops on the cops' conversations: no one can find her.

He misses his smokes. In time, he notices that if he hangs around crowded bars long enough he can get a nice nicotine buzz going. Small graces. He soon discovers that if he whispers enough ghoulish shit into the ear of some sucker, he can get them to throw a punch or hold up a liquor store. That boosts Nigel's confidence and keeps him amused. When someone moves into the dive where he first heard Gabi play, he fills the fucker's head with paranoia so fast that the tenant is out within a week. Nigel doesn't want any living types occupying the place where he'd spent his honeymoon. He settles there, inasmuch as a bit of clinically depressed ectoplasm can settle anywhere.

It makes sense that he's so good at this haunting business. Living Nigel had had plenty of practice. He'd haunted her for years.

Having unrestricted access to Bucharest's finest strip joints and whore houses ought to be a perk of being dead. But getting off as a ghost appears medically impossible - at least at first. Nigel can watch all he wants, loiter close to the action, spend his nights with the nicest pieces of ass in town. Pointless. He might as well be jerking off to a dead pigeon. Then one day he's  killing time in his ratty little room when memories come crashing down on him, so real and tactile that he can smell sweet perfume and pussy, hear every _oh fuck_  and _God_ and _please_ , feel the smooth milk of her skin.

 _"You make the worst cello stool, Nigel."_  
  
_"I'm the only fucking cello stool can make you come, gorgeous. Come on, squirm a little more for me."_

He loved touching her when she played. She bitched and bitched about it, but he always suspected she enjoyed the challenge of keeping to the score with his fingers inside her and his teeth on her neck.

Months pass. Memories are the only thing that can get him hard. The past swells and swells inside Nigel until he wonders if this is what it truly means to be a ghost: an entity made of remembering.

Meanwhile, playing spectator to bloody antics and fucking about with weaker brains is starting to wear thin. Another summer comes, and Nigel spends the long sweltering afternoons haunting Herăstrău Park. Not, he tries to tell himself, because that's where the local string quartet sets up shop to supplement their income. Still, he never misses a performance. He sits on the ground between them, feels the cello strings vibrate through him and can almost remember what it feels like to be alive.

It keeps him going, this music therapy for ghosts, the way methadone keeps a junkie going. But no one plays like her. Her playing saved his life. If anyone can bring Nigel back from the dead...

But she's gone.

\-----  
  
Maybe it's all that music, but one fine day Nigel finds he's got an agenda. It's a loose one, and he doesn't know what he wants out of it, but that evening something animates him towards a very specific destination.

The house stands dark and desolate. Nigel wanders in the same way he did that fateful night, no need to bash any heads in this time. The place is waiting for new occupants, but is still furnished, preserved in formaldehyde after Victor kicked it.

Nigel ought to be startled, but something in him expected this. In the dark, the old man is slumped over the piano. He's staring at the score sheets, and softly mouths their melodies. He looks up soon enough. 

"Hey, Victor."  
  
"Fuck you, Nigel."  
  
"You really ought to be nicer to your fellow dead men, don't you think? Seems we don't see our own kind that often."  
  
"And aren't you just my luck. What do you want?"

Nigel roams the room, aimless. He gets another concentrated hit of memories. Shattered glass, emerald dress, golden gun. Her talent for strategically missed shots. 

Victor groans at him, folds his arms. "Why do I bother asking? There's only one thing you could possibly want."

"Just tell me where I can find her."

"Have you forgotten, Nigel? Till death do you part. She used to repeat it to me, early on, when I tried to warn her. Before she realised what you were."

Nigel's mouth twists. He remembers how much he's missed punching someone. He never got to punch Victor. He wonders if it's not too late. 

"Go back to where you died, Nigel. Maybe there's some love left there for you to scrape up."

Nigel throws his weight at Victor, arm back, fist tight and ready. The old man's ghost flinches and Nigel catches the fear in his eyes. The pointless, habitual fear of someone who can no longer hurt, except in the worst of ways. Like Nigel. He eases off by inches. He stares at the keyboard, unclenches his fist and lets his fingers drop uselessly onto the keys.

"I was an asshole. Wasn't I?"

"You were the worst thing that ever happened to her."

\-----

He hadn't been back since that night. As he gets closer, he half-expects to see his corpse, to see the whole fucking tragic denouement unfold again and again like a broken record.

No Charlie the Cocksucker. No Darko and his thugs, no distant wail of sirens. The scene is different, but the water is still slicked with neon and the air still smells like metal, blood and damp. Nigel gets closer. He squints and sees two shapes lit harshly at the water's edge.

He freezes. It can't be. The girl and her cello.

He mouths her name. He's drowning in the need to touch. The faceless forces of death hold him back but he strains and strains, closer and closer, until he can see her tears streaming, thick and black with makeup and grief.

She opens the cello case.

"Gabi."

She sniffs and swears, wipes at her face, snaps her little stool open with a jerk. She sits. Neon catches in the brass of her hair.

"Gabi, Gabi, fuck, Gabi. It's me."

And then, in the near-darkness and over the hum of traffic and with the water sloshing below, she plays and plays and it's just for him. 


End file.
